The James Webb Space Telescope and other cool astronomy stuff!

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One of my favorite things about the Where Is Webb? page: the McDLT sensors on either side of the sunshield.

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For those not old enough to appreciate @MichaelRobertson’s McDLT reference, much less remember a time when Jason Alexander appeared to have hair up top…

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Jason Alexander debuted on Broadway just four years before that ad. Just four years after that ad, he won a Tony Award. That same year, he started on Seinfeld. Such a strange career that man has had.

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I have found the difference in temperature fascinating as well. I’m used to thinking of space as incredibly cold. The idea that it can have temps like that is really interesting.

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I don’t think it has temps. I think the machine has them.

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Yes, of course. I didn’t phrase it right. That there is enough energy being transmitted through space to drive the temperature of the telescope that high (or rather the sunshield protecting the telescope).

It’s something I know because that’s what happens on the Earth as well. It’s just mentally different.

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You can pretend to be the telescope by going camping when it’s cold and having a camp fire.

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As long as it’s a clear night so I can see the stars just as well. :smiley:

:fire: :camping: :night_with_stars:

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Same here. I understand logically how it works, but my little lizard brain has a hard time detaching from how thermal properties work here in our thick atmosphere.

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If it flies away from the sun at the speed of light, the sun side would be the cold side.

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Generally, yes, space is QUITE cold… unless of course you’re in direct line of sight of a giant ball of nuclear fusion and within radiant heat range… like say the habitable zone.

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The port wing deployment is complete!

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/07/first-of-two-primary-mirror-wings-unfolds/

Deployment of the starboard wing—the final deployment step—will be broadcast tomorrow on NASA TV, followed by a press briefing.

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I for one am enjoying the live video of the deployments.

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The REAL reason for the JWST’s massive “sunshield”…

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You can already see how the cold side is continuing to slowly cool down now that it’s soaking in perpetual shadow. Here’s the latest McDLT snapshot from 23 hours later:

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OK, so call me crazy if you want, but I was checking out the Where Is Webb? page earlier today while Gamera vs. Guiron was on and, well … apparently Young Richard Burton is a fan of Lagrange Point 2.

(Or someone on the JWST team is a Gamera fan.)

(Or it’s just a coincidence, but what fun is that?)

Screen Shot 2022-01-07 at 6.06.47 PM

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It might be that. The logo on Tom’s hat is that of the Lotte Orions.


Lotte, a South Korean company, purchased the Toyko Orions in 1969, so that was a pretty new hat Tom was wearing in Gamera vs. Guiron. The team changed its name to the Chiba Lotte Marines in 1992 when it moved to Chiba City’s Chiba Marine Stadium.

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Damn logical answers.

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Hey, I think the similarity is pretty darn close, too! And you know how fond space flight engineers are of their easter eggs and backronyms.

Edit: here’re the logos side by side.

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